


a slow faith

by virgil



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, M!Byleth - Freeform, Male My Unit | Byleth, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, i just want mercedes to be HAPPY and also to be RECOGNIZED!!!!!!!!!!!, slow build relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 13:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20507978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virgil/pseuds/virgil
Summary: mercedes and byleth rediscover each other in the years of rebuilding, and find refuge in one another. male byleth, set loosely in Golden Deer Act 2.





	a slow faith

**Author's Note:**

> maybe love is okay sometimes

Garreg Mach was different now. Mercedes knew this. The stones of the great monastery, ruined from the battle five (no, at this point, nearly six) years ago still littered the floor, and Mercedes wondered if they were still holy. They must be, she thought. There must still be something holy, even in the rebuilding. There is beauty still in the rubble, in the all-the-years-later. She had changed too, she knew.

In the years after the great battle, her faith in higher power was different now. As it had for so many others, in desperate times it became a clarion call for those seeking purpose, including Mercedes. Garreg Mach always felt like home, even when it was far away. Even when, as it was now, a hastily-rebuilt house of war, it was still home.

The mornings were still crisp, and the newly-repopulated dining hall still had her favorite pastries, and of course, Byleth was back.

He still was quiet, an enigma to everyone but her. Over the years, he was the only one she ever could truly be herself around. His shock of green hair reminded Mercedes of the vibrant fields outside her home, back when the Kingdom was a sanctuary instead of a warzone. It had been years since she had taken up residence inside the Alliance (a refuge gifted by Claude in his years of rebuilding) but the kingdom of Faerghus still called to her. It was always easier to take hope in the simpler past than the complicated present, the rolling hills and fields of a more just time.

She was strong, she knew it. She always was, even in her youth. They all looked up to her back then, all the other students. She was older, and her few years above her friends meant that she felt as much a caretaker to them as a peer. Never quite fitting in, but never without love. Never without inclusion... just... different.

It wasn’t like that with Byleth. He made her feel at home. He and her were alike, she realized, each one step removed from the rest of the monastery. Not quite a child, not quite grown.

But here, now, there was time, even if it must be stolen between battles, stolen between training, stolen between other former students. The occasional glance, the hands touching during prayer, the long talks in the evenings, as the sun set over the lake. Byleth and Mercedes had grown to be quiet confidants, just enough out of earshot from the others that no one would suspect anything. She wondered how long it would take until they noticed.

Annie had certainly guessed it, and of course Claude had teased (though she could of course tease him back about that beard--so unkempt, so very Claude). Even Marianne, in her quiet way, had let on that she had noticed the pious girl wandering more often near the Professor’s quarters.

They were to meet again today, and Mercedes, for the first time in a long time, felt nervous. She had resolved that this would be the time. This would be the moment. She had to tell him that in the mornings, when the sun peeked through her window, she thought of him. She had to tell them that every time the fires of the oven rose high she thought about him, that every prayer was laced with his name, that every green grass was a reminder of him. That all of this had been this way for long before he had returned. 

She had counted every day he was gone. In the rosaries, in her diary, even in her sleep. How do you let go of someone, and then learn to find them again?

Brick by brick, she thought. Brick by brick. Until before you knew it, the cathedral would be whole again. She saw the workers in the monastery, hauling the pieces of stonework back to their rightful places, ad she knew that even when they were rubble, they were holy. Even in their scars, in their bloody histories, they were holy, and that even if separated they could be rejoined. And of course, he was holy. As holy to her as anything else.

For the first time in a long time, she removed her coif and shawl, laid it ceremoniously on the pillow before going to meet with him. Let her hair down long like she wore it when she was a girl. He deserved this. She wanted him to know her, as she wanted to be known.

She would tell him that this was the brickwork. This was the rebuilding. That everything she had done, all the years, all their talks and conversations and endless thoughts, all their careful tiptoeing around the subject, it could be laid aside. This was the great cathedral, and she wanted him to be there with her. She wanted to see him smile, again, like he had come to do so often with her.

She was not often a direct woman, but she was determined. Sometimes, she thought, there is a trust so deep, it requires no hesitation. Just faith.


End file.
